The Systematic Character of the National Socialist
Policy for the Extermination of the Jews: Electronic Edition,
by Heinz Peter
Longerich

2.6 Police Battalions

2.6.1However not only Einsatzgruppen, but also different battalions of the German Order Police perpetrated massacres on the Jewish civilian population in the first few weeks of the military advance in the occupied Eastern areas. - In Bialystok, the Police Battalion 309 committed a massacre as early as 27 June in which at least 2000 Jews, among them women and children were victims. In the course of this action, members of the Battalion forced at least 500 into the Synagogue and murdered them by setting fire to the building.103

2.6.2- In Bialystok, Police Battalion 316 and 322 staged a massacre in the middle of July whereby altogether 3000 Jewish men were killed.104 A few days before this massacre, on the afternoon of 8 July, Himmler appeared in Bialystok together with the Chief of the Order Police, Daluege.105 In a meeting with SS and Police Officers Himmler stated, according to Bach-Zelewski's testimony, that "basically every Jew was to be regarded as a partisan".106 On the next day, Daluege announced in a speech to members of the Police Regiment Centre that "Bolshevism must now be definitively exterminated".107 Two days later, on 11 July, the Commander of the Police Regiment Centre issued the order to shoot all Jewish men between the ages of 17 and 45 convicted as looters.108 The police made it very easy to "convict" Jews as "looters"; three days previously, members of the Battalion 322 had searched the Jewish quarter and confiscated the goods therein as "loot".109 Jews were thus per se "looters."

2.6.3- The Police Battalion 316 perpetrated in Baranowicze a further massacre in the second half of July with probably several hundred dead; it was later involved in two mass executions in Mogilev, whereby on September 19, 3700 Jews (also women and children) were killed.110

2.6.4- The Police Battalion 307 shot several thousand Jewish civilians in Brest-Litovsk around July 12; almost all were men between 16 and 60, it was a supposed "retribution measure" (Vergeltungsmaßnahme). Immediately before the massacre, Daluege, the Chief of the Police Regiment Centre, Montua, Bach-Zelewski and further Higher SS Leaders had assembled in Brest.111

2.6.5- The Battalion 322 received a radio message from the HSSPF, directing them to "send a company to liquidate the Jews".112 In the war diary of the Battalion for August 9 it is noted: "Company 3 captures all male Jews to be found between the ages of 16 to 45 in Bialovice and evacuates all other Jews of Bialovice."113 And on the next day, it read: "Company 3 follows through on the liquidation of the male Jews in the prisoner assembly camp in Bialovice. 77 Jews aged between 16 and 45 were thereby shot."114

2.6.6Once again Jewish men were shot by the same company of Battalion 322 a few days later in Marovka-Mala in the area near Bialovice. In the war diary of the Battalion for August 8 it is stated: "259 women and 162 children were evacuated to Kobryn. All male Jews of 26-65 (282 heads) and one Polish person were shot for plundering."115 Later, it must have been between 10 August and 15 August, an order arrived which increased the age limit for Jewish men to be shot from 45 to 65.

104. Angrick et al., Kriegstagebuch, 334ff; Verdict District Court Bochum against members of the Police Bataillon 316 which was also involved in this massacre (District Court Bochum of 6.6.68, ZSt., II 202 AR-Z 168/59).